Monday, July 31, 2006

“What’s to say whether I am legal or illegal?”

The question used for the title this post was posed by Rubén Castilla Herrera, a Mexican-American leader of the Ohio-based Latino Leadership Initiative, in a New York Times article detailing the the crackdown of employers that hire illegal immigrants.

From 'U.S. Puts Onus on Employers of Immigrants' (emphasis added):
...On July 20, two other Kentucky corporations, Asha Ventures and Narayan, pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants. They provided workers for Holiday Inn and other hotels in Kentucky. The next day, federal agents shut down a prosperous Chinese restaurant, Bee’s Buffet in Fairfield, Ohio, and took away the owner, Jing Fei Jiang. He was charged with importing illegal Asian workers who were living in the basement of his home...

...“It [the crackdown] is causing people to watch their backs,” said Rubén Castilla Herrera, a Mexican-American leader of the Latino Leadership Initiative, an Ohio group. He said Latinos were worried that they could come under law enforcement suspicion.

“All I have to do is take off my tie and I can be confused,” Mr. Herrera said. “What’s to say whether I am legal or illegal?” Mr. Herrera said many Ohio immigrants believed the I.C.E. raids were timed to respond to the spring marches. Agency officials said their operations were not related to the protests...
Julia Preston, the author of the article, would have done her readers a service by pointing out that legality is not the open question Mr. Herrera wants us to believe it is.

The U.S Department of Labor's website provides the page 'Compliance Assistance —Immigration Reform and Control Act' with this information:
Under IRCA, employers may hire only persons who may legally work in the U.S., i.e., citizens and nationals of the U.S. and aliens authorized to work in the U.S. The employer must verify the identity and employment eligibility of anyone to be hired, which includes completing the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9). Employers must keep each I-9 on file for at least three years, or one year after employment ends, whichever is longer.
More from Employer Rules for Hiring Non-US Workers.

1 Comments:

Blogger Ben said...

Now thats a good line "Whats to say whether I am legal or not."

Great post.

August 1, 2006 at 11:24 PM  

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